


The Trouble of Trickery Words

by Keagan_Ashleigh



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Ficlet, First Kiss, Implied Sexual Content, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, M/M, POV John Watson, Pining, Resolved Sexual Tension, Sexual Tension, Sick Sherlock, john writing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-24
Updated: 2016-01-24
Packaged: 2018-05-15 21:39:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,757
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5801218
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Keagan_Ashleigh/pseuds/Keagan_Ashleigh
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John is facing a blank page, and start to write as a way to alleviate his boredom and trouble. What first begins as a confession and random thoughts turns to something more, as the words that had been locked up onto the pages and John's mouth will be freed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Trouble of Trickery Words

**Author's Note:**

> The idea came initially from a prompt I found on Tumblr. the prompt being: "given a blank piece of paper, a pencil, and nothing to do, what would happen?"
> 
> And as it happens the theme around blank page syndrome and trickery words is a subject I often worked on in my poems (in French), since years ago. It's a subject I love as a poet and I thought it'd be nice to be put under John's pen.   
> The subject of words - their complexity and difficulty to be handled - became an interest for me when I was in high school and discovered the poems of Yves Bonnefoy through The Crooked Planks (that I definitely recommend). So in a way you can say that Bonnefoy inspired me for this, even though the initial inspiration happened something like ten years ago. :) 
> 
> Side note: I'm sorry if there is English mistakes, feel free to tell me if you see something wrong. ^^

The sun is shining low on the horizon, the sky is clear and the air is fresh, a few large purplish clouds are dancing slowly in the morning sky, a halo of salmon pink light on their ridge, looking like an old impressionist painting. There is a fine dark blue line on the horizon where the night is slowly receding as a low tide, the last stars fading as the sunlight grows brighter. I can hear the fainted sound of the birds singing their ancestral song to the nature awakening. The streets are globally silent, but you can already hear the round of cars full of half-awaken people heading to whatever work – boring or pleasant -, and there is the sound of the coffee machines from Speedy's cafe that you can hear if you give an attentive ear.   
And far, far away, you can hear the good old clock chanting the running of time, “it's five in the morning”, it yells, “wake up, London, there is a long day coming, full of surprises and new wonders to see, you wouldn't miss that, would you?”

Isn't it how people usually start a story when they don't know how to start it?   
Describing the sky and the ambiance of the streets is always the best escape for a writer who doesn't know what to do in front of a blank page, it can maybe lead to describe the situation of principal interest, the main character appearing then, rising from the background like a subject in a painting taking their place in the middle of a landscape painted in detail. It's an easy yet effective way to go through the trouble of a blank page, it works, and no one ever complain.

Though I am not sure it can work for me now. I'm sitting there, in front of a blank paper, a pen in my hand, bored, describing the morning sky. I don't particularly know what to write after that. I'm not a fiction writer, and there is nothing that worth being told, Sherlock and I had no cases lately. Apart from the big one, obviously. Sherlock never really liked to work on more than one cases at a time.   
Helps if his mind is focused hundred percent on the problem, he says sometimes. Being distracted isn't helping in this case of job, you imagine. Though sometimes he makes an exception if the case is interesting enough or if it can be solved easily and quickly without disturbing the course of his thoughts.   
However, there was no exception this time, no cases, nothing to do but wait and see what happens. Too bad for me as it means nothing to write. 

Though, I am bored, and writing alleviate the boredom, you know, so I thought that maybe I'd write some lines, but as every writer in the world knows, a blank page has something intimidating. It's like, you know, you stare at the emptiness of this page and you feel like it is absorbing all your energy, all of your ability to form a story - fiction or not. If you had inspiration it suddenly disappears at the tip of your pen, or if you write in a computer at the tip of your fingers.   
It's kind of like for stage artists before the curtains opens. You'll often hear them talk about this nausea that takes all their body and soul, the fear, the ultimate fear and somehow excitement that you have to do it right.   
A blank page is kinda like a stage fright for writers.  
Of course the blank page syndrome isn't really similar because you can always work again on what you wrote, but this is a fear that is look alike. The fear of not having the right words, the right story, the fear that the words can somehow threaten and devour you, just as they can trick you and deceive you.  
Words are liars. Words are unreliable. Words are tricksters.  
Maybe this is what we fear, more than the lack of inspiration. This is mostly the fear of not being able to express things exactly how you think them, because words are wild and uncontrollable somehow. They have their own existence outside your pen, they don't need you to say them to mean something, and even if you use them right, they have to be received at the other end. They can never be understood the way you meant them. Words are wild creatures, and they are the reason why a blank page is so intimidating.

Maybe this is why life feels to me like a blank page. There is all these things to say, and the fear of not being able to tell them right. The fear that the more you write the less you have control on your story. It's almost as if you as a writer are just here to give the first impulse, and then it's the story that drags you after it. And you loose control.   
This is also why words are deceitful and you should never trust them. 

Never trust the words, they tell more than they mean, or not enough. Their inexactness is a curse, and they are powerless when the concept to tell cannot be contained in a few lines. How do you express a feeling so ethereal and intense with weak, restrained words? 

I wish I could have the words, I wish I wasn't such a coward but I'm afraid. I'm too afraid to handle the words, I'm too afraid they aren't good enough, not strong enough, not pure enough.  
How weak the word “love” is. Love is for children, what I feel is deeper, and strangest. It can't be held by four little letters. Four tiny little letters. This isn't enough, and would he be able to hear this word?   
That's the problem you see, not only words are weak but they are harsh and their impact can be devastating if they aren't meant to be heard.   
He doesn't want to hear these words, not from the mouth or the poor writer who struggle to find the words. Not from the mouth of the man who is fearing the words.

One would think a writer can express whatever they want, one would think they know the words, how to tame the words. But this is a stereotype and writers are maybe the ones who have the biggest trouble with words, probably because the writer knows what they mean, what they deeply mean, and what they hold – they know their power, consequently they learn to fear them in respect. They can play with words but most of the time words are so wild, they are the ones that lead the dance.  
We are just fools who pretend to control.

A writer can't express whatever they want. And I can't find the right words. The book Fate is writing for me is a blank page.   
Excuse me, this is slightly inexact: Fate isn't the writer of someone's life, not entirely And for the part I know I have to write, it seems that I have what every writer knows as the blank page syndrome.

I know I should make a move, say something, tell the words, but it seems so... Never good enough. Maybe I should begin with a good old “once upon a time”, and continue by telling the story of a little soldier who felt like he was a stranger in a surrealistic world that was once his own home, lost in the mist of boredom, colour blinded by his perception and loss of purpose in life, things that where once full of color seemed all simple nuances of a grubby grey. Until one day, colours came back again through the eyes of a madman in a morgue who seemed to know how to read beyond the words, without the words. A madman that made himself a little home in the soldier's heart.   
That's hell of a story, don't you think? One of those that deserves to be written in a book. But you'd expect it to be simple and like a children's fairytale, sadness in the beginning, some obstacles and a happy end.  
But the story of the soldier who fell in love with a madman isn't that simple and as the story has to be written by a soldier who's afraid of words, it feels like the story can never end.

I can't find the courage to tell the story to the end, because the end is uncertain and I'm afraid it doesn't end up well. In the worst case scenario I lose him forever, not even as a lover – which he isn't even, though it's what I want him to be – but I'll also loose him as a friend. The words can deceive me and make me loose him forever and irrevocably. And quite frankly I don't think I can survive this. Not a second time.

Not again. If it didn't already happened once I would say I'm unable to imagine a life where he isn't even my friend, that I probably won't survive it, but as a matter of fact this is something I remember and I know – oh God I know – I know I can't and I wont survive.  
So, what if the words deceive me and ultimately kill me? I may as well keep them close behind my lips, and hold them until they fade away.

But words have their own will. And they won't disappear, they'll never fade, and they'll live forever on my tongue until I am the one who disappear.  
Death couldn't even make them fade, so it's fairly obvious they'll survive me until the end of time.

Oh Sherlock I wish I could release the words from my mouth, I wish I could. I wish you could hear me. 

Won't you ever see... Won't you ever understand your name is written on each and every page? Won't you ever understand that I love you? Will you realize someday, that without you I'm lost and the sky is grey?  
If only I was courageous enough to make you understand... If only you cared. If only you were able to take the words into your hands and make them yours.   
They are supposed to be precious and kept in the security of your heart, but what if you just drop them and shatter them, what if they hurt instead of ease the way to joy and serenity?   
What if the words doesn't mean the same to you as they mean to me?

So maybe silence is the lesser good I have to hope, maybe it is vain to hope for more, because the silence is keeping you close. It's assuring me you stay. It means I can still see a smile on your face, it means I can still have the running in the shadows of the streets, it means I can still have the thrill and the laughs.   
Though I crave for more, though I can't bare the empty spaces and the feeling of being so close yet incapable of touching you. I crave for the feeling of your breath melting with mine and the softness of your skin. I crave for morning light shining through your hair as I wake up from a bad dream. I crave for the feeling of your hand in mine as we fly away from the scary rush of life, in a haven only us know, in a haven we could call our home.  
I crave for the words to cross our mouths and be freed. 

If only I had the courage to write the words on the blank page of our life. If only you could read them and take them into your heart.

Oh, I can hear you, I guess you're awake. 

You know why I'm at Baker Street, at least the obvious reason but I'm gonna write it for this non-existent reader I'm writing to – since I'm never going to show any of this to anyone; but even when you write in a diary you write for someone, a reader that has no existence, but a reader still. So I'm going to explain.  
I came here because Sherlock was sick. Well... When I say sick. It's true, but it's more like what Mycroft once called a danger night. He didn't seemed well lately, which is not really a surprise since in a matter of two months or so he got shot, nearly died, killed a man, was locked in solitary confinement, was sent away to finally being brought back by the reappearance of his worst enemy. And he OD'ed. Which means another kind of enemy is fighting him.  
Of course it was a danger night, and I'm even willing to tell it's a danger week – month. Year. I don't think we can put a precise word on that. Who knows how long is a danger state?   
Though I think we all got worried for nothing. I spent the evening and the night at home and everything went well.   
We watched tv until he fell asleep on the sofa, and that's it. He didn't looked bothered by anything, really. He even looked happy - as happy as he could be given the circumstances. I've seen him in worst state than this, honestly. But Mycroft put a finger on a good point: pretending is easy for someone who spent half his life to hide an addiction. So I didn't lowered my guard and I looked after him all night. I searched into his room while he was sleeping just to be sure he won't be tempted by a needle and a little bottle of heroin, but there wasn't any - to my relief - and once I was sure, I took him to bed and stayed a while in the kitchen, listening and waiting in case he needed anything. 

I think Mary is gonna kill me for that. She hates not having me under her sight. I don't think she suspect anything about me and the feelings I hide, but, still. I don't know. I don't trust her.   
I know Sherlock said I could, and I should trust him, but, there is something about her that bothers me, and the fact she shot the only person on earth that makes me feel alive is maybe a good enough reason to be suspicious. It's not like she talked bad about him or hurt his feelings, she nearly killed him and hide a whole history made of murders and God knows what else.   
How can you trust someone who lied that much and especially about being an assassin that kills people for money?   
So, you know, maybe she's away from this life now, and maybe she has good reasons, but I'm not willing to forgive her easily for nearly putting me back into the misery I was when I met her.   
There is no way I can go through this again, I said it before, I still have the memory of what it did to me, so I know I won't survive this once again.  
Plus, how can you trust someone who you don't love anymore? - if it happens that you loved her once. I'm not even sure about that. Maybe I did loved her at some point, I don't know, all I'm sure about is that it's a relief to not spend the night under her roof.   
What I'm also sure about is that she'll be upset. 

Anyway, I suppose we'll figure out all of this when the right moment comes. So I was saying Sherlock was sick.   
When I came yesterday to check on him, he was lying on the sofa, sweating even though the windows where opened on the cold winter air. It was freezing, but when I put my hand on his forehead I felt he was burning.  
I took him to the bathroom and ran him a tepid bath to lower his temperature.  
After a few minutes it came back to normal and he insisted on staying in the living-room with me. Maybe he was afraid of the fever, and my presence was reassuring to him.   
He told me he trusted me as a doctor with his life, and that it was the reason he didn't called a doctor when he got sick.  
I thought he called for me because he didn't knew any other doctor, so you imagine his words were like a balm and I was profoundly grateful for his kind words. But when I examined him I understood any other doctor would have seen the symptom of the lack of drugs perceptible under the actual sickness. Hence the danger night. 

So my question is, how much did he used lately to be in such a state right now? Maybe it is because he's actually sick, I'm not really an expert on the subject so I can only guess it can make things worse. Or that his body being weakened he got sick more easily, I don't know, it's not really the most important point. He always pretended to have it under control, and he never shown any of this kind of symptoms so I always assumed he had enough control over it. I'm not sure about anything anymore.  
I guess I overestimated him on that point. I did an awful mistake. What else I have mistaken so far?

He is calling my name. I should go see what he wants.

\---

[Evening of the same day.]

Apparently the fever came back. He was rumbling about incoherent stuff, I didn't understood half of it.  
I came to his room only to see him rave restlessly. He was agitated and cried my name a few times, I don't even think he realized right away I was there, nor I think he was consciously calling after me. My heart clenched when I saw him like this. 

I went in the bathroom to wet a towel I've put on his forehead to lower the fever, and he calmed down after a while. When he was stabilized, I draw a move to go to the kitchen to prepare an infusion with plants I knew where good for this kind of pain (I may be what one would call a modern doctor but I know the usefulness of plants and old remedies). But he grabbed my wrist and begged for me to stay.

“Don't leave me please, don't leave.”, he cried. No need to say he didn't needed to beg. So I stayed. 

I sat next to him on the edge of his bed, and the grasp he had on my wrist eased a little, but he kept his fingers linger on my skin.  
The feeling was marvellous despite the context that induced it. I wish he'd do that with all his consciousness, but it's not like I was to complain. At least I could stay still and pretend, I didn't moved and begged God for him not to move either. 

His breath was still uneasy, though it soothed after a moment, and I was relieved. If he was agitated earlier, he was now at peace, at least as much as I could tell from outside his mind.   
Sometimes I wish I could see what is going on in his mind. I wish I could see his thoughts and worries beyond the visible calmness of his traits.   
I wish I could soothe him from the inside, whatever his worries are. I'm powerless, and I'm mad at the idea he has to face it alone. However, isn't it what we all have to do? It's just that I wish I could do something.   
I couldn't do much more than staying at his bed and cool his temperature with a wet towel put on his forehead.   
Who knows what's going on behind these amazing eyes? I only wish I could relieve him from all the pains and troubles.

My back began to hurt and this is when I realized a full hour already passed. I let a moan escape from my mouth as I tried to unblock my vertebrae, and as silent as I tried to be he heard me. He opened his eyes mildly, and the dim light was instantly caught on them, they were shining from fever and exhaustion, and they pierced me like an arrow. Even in the darkness of the room I felt like they were seeing everything up to my very soul.  
I thought about this drabble I was writing that I left carelessly on the table near my cup of tea on the desk in the living-room. It felt like he could read it by looking at me, so I felt embarrassed and kinda afraid.   
It was silly of me, he never moved from this room, and as far as I know even him can't read in people's minds, even though his deductions sometimes feels like that.

Without saying a word, he looked at his left to the empty space next to him, in a way of saying “come here”. I wasn't surprised at the moment that he knew for the state of my back and what I needed, but I guess I just got used to him knowing things.   
Maybe it is what explains my illogical fear about my confession written an hour earlier. 

I couldn't see the outside since the curtains where closed, but I could hear the clouds being torn apart by a storm, and the rain beginning its pounding against the glass of the window. It didn't surprised me, I could see the sky was already dark right before I left the living-room, a storm is easy to predict.   
This, the sound of the rain, and our breaths – his croaked by the sickness and mine by the anxiety growing under my chest – were the only sounds we could hear. I'm pretty sure if we listened more attentively we would have been able to hear the beating of our hearts, and I think that he would have thereby understood, probably, what I was thinking. 

I hesitated for what seemed a couple minutes, and stood up to get around the bed, taking place next to Sherlock on the bed - I initially thought about just lying above the sheets and blanket, but Sherlock's room was really cold and he didn't left me the choice.   
As soon as I was in place, he sighed. In relief, I thought. I wished. For a moment I cursed the world for having to loose the contact I was so keen to protect, and then I cursed the space between us, wishing I could just get closer and wrap my arms around his body. 

Maybe the odds heard my cursing, because as he was drifting again into sleep, he turned on himself to face me and eyes closed put his hand on my arm. I dared to wish there wasn't the fabric of my clothes to keep me from feeling his hand on my bare skin, but I thanked the sky anyway.

The storm was raging outside, and despite the curtains I saw the flash of lightening illuminating the room, soon followed by a loud burst of thunder. Sherlock clenched his fist and grabbed my sleeve. I shall keep this information close in my memory, the strong and fierce Sherlock Holmes is startled by the storm. He got slightly closer, seeking for comfort. So I dared putting my hand on his arm, just under his shoulder.  
Before I could even process it, he was so close I could feel his hot breath against my neck and my free arm was holding him close. I closed my eyes as his stillness and the darkness of the room drove me into a state of weariness. But I couldn't sleep. I was madly ill-at-ease, but somehow relieved that apparently Sherlock's fever was gone and he was sleeping peacefully.

My heart was beating fast, and I was struggling not to explode, I was tensed, only praying for him not to notice.   
Oh God, his mouth was so close. All it needed was for me to turn my head and kiss his lips. So close it was painful.   
I tried to look away in an attempt to escape, afraid of being so close, afraid of his movement of repulsion if he felt me just a little to close. But each time, I couldn't help but coming back into my initial position, slightly turned toward him. 

The rain was getting stronger and stronger, hitting the window furiously as the wind began to join the symphony. And I'm embarrassed to tell but my desire too was going stronger with each second spent in the close embrace that I was simultaneously blessing and trying to escape.   
If I had been able to anticipate what happened next I would not have even tried in the first place to escape, nor this, nor anything in the past few years. If I had been able to predict what happened next none of the miseries of my life since the day we met would have happened at all.

Because when I turned my head to look at him once again, his eyes were open, and they were shining from another kind of fever. Before I could draw any move I felt his hand on my jaw gently pressing to make me face him completely and his lips brushed mine hesitantly, but with a kind of firm resolution I understood intimately.  
The rest of it comes now into a blur in my memory, I got carried away by the surrealism of what was happening and got lost into the feeling of complete relief and happiness, and I don't think my brain was even working at this time.  
But I do remember the touch of his skin under my fingertips, the sensation of his lips against mine, the messy kisses and the smile on his face when we parted before closing the gap again. 

I remember the emptiness in my heart being replaced by the fullness of my love and his own revealed without words. The feeling of being whole again, all the broken pieces of me being put back together as his hands were exploring fiercely as if he was drawing a map of my body in his mind.   
I remember the tears shining in the corner of his eyes that I wiped away with a kiss while I finally let mine rise and flow, laughing at the same time. I couldn't say a word, and neither could he, and to be honest there was no need.   
What I said before is true, words are powerless, and they were useless, though we knew we had a lot to say. 

When we finally parted, breathless, panting against each other's skin, I said “Sherlock, I...” but couldn't finish as he cut me.  
“I know.” He declared. I had no doubt he knew what I was about to say.  
“How?” I asked.  
“I took your pulse”, he just answered matter-of-factly with a lopsided smile.

I burst into laugh. I should have know. When he took my wrist in his hand, I should have understand. 

“Let me say it anyway, would you?”  
“Yes”, he exhaled, his smile getting wider.

So I finally said the words I was so afraid to say for all these years.  
“Sherlock, I love you. Always have.”  
“I love you too.” He said back, and my happiness never was so fully complete. 

There is still a lot to say. Lots of what a writer would call plot holes if our story has to be written. Lots of unsaid things we're not afraid to say anymore, however it will take a while to say them all.   
I don't know if we have all the time in the world but I'm willing to believe we have. And I am now willing to believe words won't be as poisonous as I thought they would be when I first took my pen to fill this blank page this morning. 

The most important words have been freed from my mouth, that alone is making me feel better than I ever was in all my life. 

And as I'm about to stop writing here, for now, I want to end this with the following words, that feels so warm and sweet on the tip of my tongue, words soon to be said loudly, and understood, words that will never be deceiving.

I'm back home, and I'm not leaving ever again. Whatever the Fate brings us next, I'm home, and I am not leaving.


End file.
